Spectators could be watching on-ice action at the Martensville Sports Centre online over the internet next year.
Martensville City Council voted at a meeting on Tuesday, November 24 to earmark $9,500 toward installation and operation of a video-streaming system at the arena.
Funding for the system will come from a $575,363 grant the city received from the provincial Safe Restart Program in early September. A total of $70 million was allocated by the province to municipalities at that time to help them offset the financial burden of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Martensville Recreation and Community Services Director Ted Schaeffer told the November 24 council meeting that while the city’s arena is currently closed due to COVID-19 restrictions, spectator limitations will likely continue even after it is re-opened.
“Many people won’t be able to attend events,” said Schaeffer. “We’ve had a lot of inquiries from people asking if games can be live-streamed.”
Schaeffer said the city looked at several options, including the Live Barn system currently in operation in Warman and the possibility of SaskTel Infinet service.
He said there have been some problems with the Live Barn service, and the Infinet option is not yet available in Martensville.
He added that a locally-designed and operated system is likely to be the best option. It would also have the advantage of not requiring individual users to pay a subscription fee for the service. Instead, the city would cover the subscription fees as part of the overall operating cost, so individual users could view the event via YouTube or Facebook apps.
A proposal for a locally-designed system was received by the city from Ainsworth Inc. of Saskatoon.
The system proposed by Ainsworth would consist of a static view camera with four lenses offering an HD 180 degree viewing field, remote connected microphones, and a dedicated computer with software capable of high-speed video streaming. The system would not require a dedicated line. It would operate at a speed of 10 megabytes per second upload, with the potential to increase to 20 megabytes per second in the future.
Funding from the Safe Restart Program will also be used to help the city switch over from water fountains to water bottle filling stations at the Martensville Athletic Pavilion (MAP).
Council voted at its November 24 meeting to allocate $11,660 from the grant to cover the cost of taking out the six existing water fountains and replacing them with six touchless water bottle filling stations.
The switch-over will be done in February, when lower-cost water bottle filling station units become available. Schaeffer told the council meeting there are units available now, but it would cost almost twice as much to purchase those units now and have the work done immediately.
Councillors agreed the switch to water bottle filling stations are safer than water fountains. They voted unanimously to endorse the purchase and installation of lower-cost units in February.